Ukraine wants EU’s help on Stalin crime

Ukraine has welcomed the European Parliament’s recognition of the Soviet-era famines as a “crime against the Ukrainian people and against humanity”, calling it “a very important act of solidarity”.

Speaking to European Voice, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodomyr Ogryzko described the man-made famine – increasingly referred to by the Ukrainian term holodomor – as “a tragedy for mankind”, not just for Ukrainians, and said that Ukraine now hopes that EU states will support Ukraine in its efforts to convince the UN General Assembly to accept that the holodomor was ‘a crime against humanity’ or a ‘genocide’.

The Ukrainian parliament decided two years ago that Josef Stalin’s enforced collectivisation of Ukraine’s farms and the resulting famine in 1932-33, which the Ukrainian government believes left 10 million people dead, amounted to ‘genocide’.

The European Parliament stopped short of using the term in its resolution, which it passed on 23 October, but Ogryzko believes that will change. “It is OK for the time being to call it crime against humanity. That is the first step,” he said. “The second step, to call the holodomor ‘genocide’ will come in the future. With information and knowledge about the event it will become evident for everyone.”

It is OK for the time being to call it crime against humanity

Ukraine has twice sought to raise the issue at the UN, but its efforts were blocked on both occasions by Russia. “I don’t understand Russia’s position,” Ogryzko said. Ukraine’s effort to gain fuller recognition of the nature of the holodomor “is not against Russia. It is really against the communist regime in the Soviet Union at the time,” he said.

In Ukraine itself, the authorities have sought to raise public awareness of the episode in Soviet Ukraine’s history, by making all documents available and by collecting together eye-witness accounts. It is about to step up its efforts by unveiling a new monument in Kyiv to commemorate the holodomor on 22 November, at the start of an international conference on collectivisation and the famine in the Ukrainian capital. The Ukrainian authorities have invited a number of heads of state to attend. That will be followed in a few years time by a museum dedicated to the famine.

“We want to prevent something similar to holodomor happening in the future,” Ogryzko said. “It could be repeated.”